For people concerned about housing availability, permission to build is not a finished home. The Census Bureau and HUD reported on February 16, 2017 that January permits for privately owned U.S. housing units reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,285,000. The estimated monthly increase was 4.6 percent, with a 90 percent sampling margin of 2.0 percentage points. [nrc_201701]

Completions described a later stage: an annualized rate of 1,047,000 housing units, not that many homes finished in January. The estimated monthly change was minus 5.6 percent, with a 90 percent sampling margin of 8.0 percentage points. Because the interval included zero, the release did not establish a decline or prove that completions were unchanged. [nrc_201701]

Starts require similar care about the comparison. The January 19 release initially put December starts at an annualized, seasonally adjusted rate of 1,226,000 units. The February release revised December to 1,279,000 and estimated January at 1,246,000. Its minus 2.6 percent monthly estimate carried an 11.0-percentage-point 90 percent sampling margin, also leaving the direction statistically uncertain. [nrc_201701][nrc_201612]

The public-interest distinction is between a construction stage and a household outcome. Neither more permits nor these uncertain completion estimates demonstrate better affordability or access. The intervals cover sampling variability, not every source of error. Census and HUD jointly produced these releases within one program; their names and successive publication dates do not supply independent confirmation that families obtained housing. [nrc_201701][nrc_201612]

Source documents

  1. CB17-23: Monthly New Residential Construction, January 2017https://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/newresconst_201701.pdf
  2. CB17-09: New Residential Construction in December 2016https://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/newresconst_201612.pdf